Exposing pro-Israel bias, propaganda, disinformation and spin in Australia's mainstream media. Monitoring pro-Israel influence in Australia's public and political arena.

Friday, October 28, 2016

Wikipoo

Most interesting:

"Public servants and political staffers appear to have made tens of thousands of anonymous changes to Wikipedia that insult a world leader and a former prime minister, scrub embarrassing information and even claim the Holocaust was 'justified'. The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet has ordered the heads of the Defence, Foreign Affairs & Trade, Health, Agriculture and Parliamentary Services departments to investigate possible breaches of government IT policy and report back in a week." (Wiki mischief: public servants changing encyclopaedia entries, James Massola, Sydney Morning Herald, 27/10/16)

As for the aforementioned "world leader," here are the gory details:

"Someone from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade editing the Hassan Rouhani page so it stated the Iranian President 'is diagnosed with Acute Flatulence Disorder (AFD), causing him to constanty [sic] expel gasses and making it difficult for world leaders to be in his presence'. Another edit stated he was born 'to a family of pumpkin farmers' and that his surname meant 'flatulent' or 'farty'."

Question arising: Is this the handiwork of a beyond juvenile (and overpaid) Canberra brat culture (along the lines of the 'Budgie Nine' brats of recent 'fame'), or is it, in the case of the doctored Rouhani Wikipedia page, a tad more ziopolitical?

After all:

"A pro-Israel pressure group [CAMERA] is orchestrating a secret, long-term campaign to infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia to rewrite Palestinian history, pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia administrative structures to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged." (EI exclusive: a pro-Israel group's plan to rewrite history on Wikipedia, Maureen Clare Murphy, electronicintifada.net, 12/1/12)